Government departments must share information and statistics if the quality of social policy and strategies is to be improved, the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Ms Mary Hanafin, has said.
Information gathered as a result of "once-off" surveys and analysis based on generalisations from national averages was "becoming more and more misleading" because of the pace of social change, she said.
These surveys, conducted by individual Government departments, "lacked the information to give a complete picture" of social needs, Ms Hanafin said.
Government policy was always based on the best information at the time, she added, but better information would result in better policies.
Ms Hanafin was speaking at the launch of a report from the National Statistics Board, Developing Irish Social and Equality Statistics to Meet Policy Needs.
The report identifies a range of data sources in each Government department which could be shared. It also suggests guidelines for departments to ensure information is collected on a regular basis and in the same format to be available to each other.
Government departments have agreed to the recommendations of the report.
"What we've had until now is an awful lot of people collecting an awful lot of information in different departments, but they don't talk to each other. We need these departments to share data and develop a whole-government approach to their information gathering," she said.
Ms Hanafin said proposals on the use of personal information would be forwarded by each department to the Data Protection Commissioner.
